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According to a new study, dramatic weight loss can be effective in reversing sleep apnoea.
"Our findings suggest that weight loss may be an effective treatment strategy for sleep apnoea in obese men," says study co-author Kari Johansson of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a common but under-diagnosed disorder, typified by 10 second pauses in breathing during sleep, caused by the collapse of the upper airways during sleep.
Moderate and severe OSA (15 or more pauses per hour) have an excess risk of vehicular crashes, heart disease and death.
If left untreated, it is associated with increased risk of traffic accidents, stroke and heart disease. Moderate and severe sleep apnoea also increases the risk of premature death.
Obese people are more likely to contract the disease and men are more affected than women.
The Karolinska research had 63 obese men, aged between 30 and 65 years, with moderate to severe OSA. They had undergone continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which generates more normal breathing patterns during sleep.
They were allocated to two groups, one of which underwent an intense weight-loss programme, while the other served as a control group, for a nine-week period.
The results reveal that the weight loss group lost 19 kg on average after nine weeks and more than halved the number of apnoea incidences. None of the treated patients had severe sleep apnoea, half had only mild sleep apnoea and one in six was healthy, according to a Karolinska Institute release.
Researchers also noticed that the effect of the weight loss programme was maximum in patients with severe sleep apnoea.
These studies have been published in the British Medical Journal.
